The meeting was called by the Mayor's staff to clarify several issues:

Project Goals

Communication

Committee Recruitment

Timeline

Project Goals

The need for clear goals was identified. The project is intended to identify core issues and solutions to public involvement across city bureaus. The committee leadership should be able to succinctly describe the difference in how public involvement happens after the completion of this project. We should be able to answer the question, “So What?”. This will help us narrow the scope of work and define when we have achieved success. Here are some questions to help us think about this:

What are the essential elements of public involvement to be addressed?

What are the big picture issues and our plan to address them?

How do we define the “why” and the “methodology”?

What will give these standards “teeth” ?

How do we build “universal acceptance” (or find better language)?

Several ideas for a “Goal Statement” were floated. The group decided to use these as a beginning point to craft a statement that could then be presented to the entire committee.

A. Use the words – consistent, standards, transparency – Enhanced understanding of the public process

C. Create a system based on principles and following consistent basic steps

D. Create universally accepted and consistent processes by which bureaus interact with the community around policy and project issues. This process will be based on the principles of transparency, understandability, and accountability. Encourage innovation and best practices.

This work and these questions will be framed around the “PI flowchart” presented at the last meeting and sent out by Maija Spencer.

Next Steps:

Committee Co-chairs will finalize invites for citizen participants on the committee

Co-Chairs will schedule a meeting date for August

Co-chairs will clarify and define goals and objectives (different from tasks outlined)

Co-Chairs will schedule a regular meeting time for themselves (bi-monthly? weekly?)